UK Data Response Public Finances (Feb.) February’s fortuitously timed improvement in the public finances has given Mr Darling scope for some pre-election sweeteners in next week’s Budget. But make no mistake – a long and painful fiscal... 18th March 2010 · 1 min read
Europe Commercial Property Update Has the Netherlands office market avoided a severe rental recession? Although Dutch office rental values have held up well to date, with low occupier confidence and a high volume of completions expected this year, we think the rental value correction has a little... 18th March 2010 · 1 min read
Emerging Europe Economics Update Latvia’s government left in minority The collapse of Latvia’s ruling coalition earlier today underlines the difficulty of carrying out the aggressive fiscal cuts that are needed to keep the country’s IMF programme on track. 17th March 2010 · 1 min read
Europe Economics Update Euro-zone fiscal squeeze far from over While worries about Greece’s fiscal position have recently eased somewhat, the EC’s latest assessments underline the need for a prolonged bout of fiscal consolidation right across the euro-zone over... 17th March 2010 · 1 min read
UK Economics Update MPC shouldn’t fret about inflation expectations The Monetary Policy Committee seems increasingly concerned about the risk of a rise in inflation expectations. But we think that those concerns are misguided and could lead to a policy error. 17th March 2010 · 1 min read
UK Commercial Property Data Response Financial and business services sector jobs (Q4 09) 17th March 2010 · 1 min read
UK Data Response MPC Minutes (Mar.) & Labour Data (Jan./Feb.) The minutes of March’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting confirmed that the Committee is content to sit back for now and see how the effects of its past asset purchases pan out. But while it may... 17th March 2010 · 1 min read
Europe Commercial Property Update Have rental growth prospects in Russia improved? At the margin, last week’s upward revision to our forecasts for Russian GDP growth will boost occupier demand for commercial property. However, we still expect the pace of recovery to fade next year... 17th March 2010 · 1 min read
Japan Economics Update Bank of Japan does the decent thing The bare minimum the Bank of Japan could have got away with today was to extend the lifetime of the existing ¥10 trillion programme of three-month loans. In the event it has also doubled the size of... 17th March 2010 · 1 min read
China Economics Update The view from the ground – Q1 2010 China’s businesses and banks remain confident and do not think the economy is overheating, but consumers are unhappy about prices and reluctant to spend. 16th March 2010 · 1 min read
UK Housing Market Data Response FSA Mortgage Lending Statistics (Q4) There was good news and bad news in the latest FSA lending data. On a positive note, arrears and possessions both fell in 2009Q4. But the data on mortgage lending criteria offered little encouragement... 16th March 2010 · 1 min read
Europe Data Response German ZEW Survey (Mar.) & Euro-zone Final CPI (Feb.) March’s fall in German ZEW investor sentiment confirms that confidence in the economic recovery remains fairly fragile. And with euro-zone CPI inflation still very subdued, the ECB is under no... 16th March 2010 · 1 min read
